I liked my little hole, Its window facing a brick wall. Next door there was a piano. A few evenings a month a crippled old man came to play “My Blue Heaven.”

Mostly, though, it was quiet. Each room with its spider in heavy overcoat Catching his fly with a web Of cigarette smoke and revery. So dark, I could not see my face in the shaving mirror.

At 5 A.M. the sound of bare feet upstairs. The “Gypsy” fortuneteller, Whose storefront is on the corner, Going to pee after a night of love. Once, too, the sound of a child sobbing. So near it was, I thought For a moment, I was sobbing myself.